Tag Archives: hear me all

SUBMITTED december 2016
by the golden retrievers and sandy b

Sandy B and the Golden Retrievers had an Enchanted trip while hunting for Indulgence. We have written this article for your entertainment. Mr. Fenn says: read the blogs for entertainment. We aren’t sharing our solves. Sorry. We are just sharing our fun trip with you. We hope you find our story entertaining. And we hope it encourages you to get out, hike, and search (in Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado) next spring.

We rendezvoused at a trailhead at the Embudo Canyon. We hiked down into the canyon and crossed the Treacherous River to Treasure Island (it’s not an island at all, it’s just the other side of the river – but Golden R likes to call it Treasure Island). We traveled thru the Magical Forest, moved a few rocks, reorganized some more rocks, and repositioned a few more rocks.

We Moved Rocks

One rock, standing up like a gravestone, caught our eye.

Standing up like a gravestone

Sandy B and Golden R couldn’t lift the rock out of the stone crevasse which held it. Sandy B, who has an attention span of a fruit fly, left to explore around the ridge. Since Golden R couldn’t lift the stone; Golden R tried to crank the stone sideways, like a lever. Golden R was shocked to feel the rock move easily like a lever . . . and four more rocks, which were holding the lever-rock in place, all moved with a crunching noise. It was a very “Indiana Jones moment”. Golden R expected a stone entrance to a secret tunnel to appear. But there was no secret tunnel and no treasure chest.

We walked in and out of the river . . . up and down the river. When we felt we had disturbed enough rocks, we went looking for the “Heartbeat of Mother Earth”. With our ears pressed to approximately thirty or forty different rocks, we listened good, for the heartbeat. Golden R’s ear was turning numb from holding the ear against the cold, wet rocks (did we tell you it was cold and it was raining?); we never heard the Heartbeat (Sancho, we needed you.) Sandy B heard a unique hum in that area, so we know we were in the correct spot.

Another “Indiana Jones moment” came, as we arrived at our car to find a note, enclosed in a plastic bag, on our windshield, from a treasure hunter. The note suggested we meet for Happy Hour – Oh Yes!

Sandy B and Golden R had a wonderful evening with a very handsome treasure hunter. We probably shouldn’t disclose our guest’s real name, but we like to call him “Snakecharmer”. We tried to get information out of our guest . . . we tried to buy drinks for Snakecharmer, hoping to learn valuable information . . . but he was a rock. We obtained no information about his solve. We had a very fun evening talking treasure.

The next day, we took a drive thru a very muddy canyon; and we had to scrape the mud off our tires twice, because we were sliding on the mud. Sandy B is an amazing driver; she drove us thru mud that had tire ruts or grooves in the road twelve inches deep. Sandy drove us out of there in 4WD LOW. Golden R was a good luck charm for Sandy B. Sandy B has had eight flat tires this year – on this trip Sandy B didn’t get a flat tire!

Mud

More Mud

We hiked a trail which promised warm waters halting, canyon down, and an X.

X marks the spot

We found eyes, a drawing nigh, and a listen good. We stood in one spot which has a pi to the West,

Not pineapple pi

And a finger to our east.

and a pure white blaze to our North. But no treasure chest.

The rocks along the trail were so fun to climb over and climb through – it was like a playground. But Golden R couldn’t stay and play on those rocks, because Sandy B has the attention span of a mosquito.

We then entered the strange part of our journey. This was a time where Sandy B found a broken hiking pole which displayed the word: stop (obviously “halt”).

“Halt”, says the hiking pole

At this point, we were E.C. Watersing it. (Before we sent this article to Dal, we received permission from E. C. Waters to turn his name into a verb meaning: ‘find a clue in everything you see’).

We found a concrete trough.

Water High

As we looked behind us, we saw a big water tower up high. Why didn’t we see that as we hiked by it?

More water high?

That was a beautiful, fun trail. We found hot springs and saw foot prints from elk, badger and coyote (or fox). But no treasure chest.

The next day we weren’t allowed to drive into the Vallas Caldera National Preserve, because it was hunting season; and WE WERE hunting! So we pulled out our maps, and Sandy B discovered the BEST solve yet. We packed part of our sandwich . . .

Got sandwich & got flashlight

“Did we have a flashlight?”, you might ask. Sandy B carried two or three flashlights at all times; and a rock hammer/pick axe/lever for moving rocks and scraping tires. Golden R carried two flashlights, two different packs of matches, and two different packs of waterproof matches, and everything we needed to build a shelter if we got lost. If we got lost, and had to spend the night in the mountains, our shelter would have been seen from the space shuttle.

On this hike we found a tiny, tiny water fall (it’s so tiny you can’t even see it in this picture below).

There’s something weird about her right hand in this photo

Something tells me we should go this way.

Look quickly down

We saw recent bear scratches on a tree.

“I was here”, Bear.

We found treasures old and new; and we did it tired.

There was no poop on that tire, Voxpops

This old 1939 Ford needs to be re-tired

If Sandy B had been driving that truck, it never would have gotten stuck. Sandy B can drive anywhere.

On this hike we had home of Brown; canyon down; WWWH; listen good; and X marks the spot. So we moved some rocks, reorganized some more rocks, and repositioned a few more rocks.

No treasure chest.

We had a very fun trip; and we saw some amazing sites. And we are getting closer and closer to the treasure chest.

SUBMITTED NOVEMBER 2016
by Hear ME ALL

I’m sharing my first attempt at finding a solution that would lead me to the chest to show how imagination is important but also to show how even after being stuck on this for many months I did allow myself to reconsider other possibilities and options. I realize that some will laugh, some may pick it apart, and some may see things that will make them scratch their heads. I was convinced that this solution was feasible for many months but came to the conclusion after several failed attempts by myself and another searcher that this just was not the spot that is special to Forrest. At the time it all seemed to make perfect sense to me. Looking back on this and with what I now know, I scratch my own head wondering what the heck was I thinking. I hope you enjoy and if not please be kind.

West Yellowstone, Montana

The first stanza talks about hinting of riches new and old. When I did research on West Yellowstone which f likes to share stories about, I realized that some parts of the town are old and some to the south are fairly new. The first stanza told me that West Yellowstone was the area that I needed to search. F has said that most of the places the clues refer to were around when he was a kid. That means that some came after so I attributed the new development to some clues.

Begin at Firehole Ave.. When you are stopped at the red light, there is another light for pedestrians with a hand facing out to signal them to halt. In River Bathing is Best f said that the boiling geyser waters met with the cool waters in the Firehole River. To me boiling waters meeting cool waters gives you warm waters. If you are coming in to West Yellowstone from Highway 191 driving south, you will run right into Firehole Ave. and this light.

Take it in the canyon down to me hints at going south down Canyon St. from where it joins Firehole Ave. You will just continue south from that intersection on Canyon St. Forrest mentions Canyon St. in Totem Café Caper story. I’ve also seen other posts from the past that suggest there was no way Forrest was going to down and back up a real canyon twice to hide the treasure. Number one it would be a little dangerous for a man at that age and would not be fun to traverse with a load. You have to pretend you’re in a Canyon when on the street but you really are taking it in a canyon down which is south.

Not far, but too far to walk to me simply meant I was driving. Most if not all searchers would arrive at the first clue in a vehicle so continuing to drive instead of walk to me was an obvious choice. I also wouldn’t want to walk through town carrying a chest filled with treasure.

Put in below the home of Brown. To me this is the keyword. Forrest capitalized Brown and most searchers don’t even give that much thought as it being the keyword. I think this can be tricky as he knows people would tend to think of people named Brown, and then animals it might refer to, and on down the line. To me it was Totem Café where the brown gravy assaulted his sense of smell. I think Forrest enjoys having some fun and using imagination. The put in below part came a little later for me. When I looked up Totem Café back in February, a map came up. It was a map of West Yellowstone. That is when I realized that it was on Canyon St. and then noticed Firehole Ave. and started wondering if this could be the map that he has talked about. Sure seemed that a number of things were connecting.

No place for the meek. In my solve this was the Grizzly & Wolf Discover Center. At some point in the past I remembered a comment from a searcher on Dal’s blog that said they thought they remembered Forrest saying bear were close by. I’ve never come across Forrest saying that, but if that is the case this would be a pretty close place to my search area to have bear and also be not in a dangerous area since they are contained. Also there are wolves at the center. Just south of the center is Gallatin National Forest, so if you use some imagination to pretend that you have to be brave when searching that area because of the bears and wolves that are close by it could work. There used to be an exhibit that traveled the country that is now permanently displayed at this center. On the center’s website the article about acquiring this exhibit in 2002 says home of the world class exhibit BEARS: Imagination and Reality. I thought that was interesting since Forrest has said that imagination is needed to solve the poem and has also said imagination is more important than knowlege. Another thought that I had for no place for the meek was that you would not want to go down Yellowstone Ave. in accordance with Joseph Meek.

The end is ever drawing nigh. Canyon St. dead ends shortly after the center.

There’ll be no paddle up your creek. I never really made a strong connection with this part of the poem unless the meaning was, there is no paddle because there is no creek. Could also mean you have to pretend you will be entering a creek where the canyon ends and no paddle will be needed.

Just heavy loads and water high. This one took me a bit to figure out. For the longest time I thought it was just added for filler. Then I studied the map some more and realized that one of the streets is Electric St. so that could mean heavy loads. Two other streets are Old Faithful and Geyser so I thought that could possibly be for the water high. The problem with that is they are a few blocks over and not on this path. The old water tower is also on south Electric St. and at one time I thought that could be the water high. Here is what I think Forrest meant by heavy loads and water high. At the end of Canyon St. sits the Worldmark resort. I came to the conclusion that the world part refers to heavy loads as in carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. For the water high I thought mark could refer to a high water mark. Again I used some imagination and I’m sure many would dismiss my thinking. You can park in the parking lot at Worldmark and go into Gallatin Forest through a break in the fence that the resort made to push winter snow off the property.

When the canyon dead ends I put in here. Part of it is somewhat open with grass and sagebrush and some is thicker with trees. In 1988 there was a fire that burned quite a bit of Yellowstone and close to West Yellowstone. This area was burned in the fire. The tallest trees in this area were probably planted a couple of years after that fire. You can definitely see rows of trees in places. When Forrest made some posts in the past as Forrest Fire, I thought he might have been trying to see if anyone was paying attention. This area is not one that many frequent due to it being past a dead end. It’s also not a spectacular looking area. No water, or trails, just trees, sagebrush, animals, grass and a fairly safe place but you have an unusually high number of bear and wolves right next door at the center.

If you’ve been wise and found the blaze. While standing at the end of canyon I gazed around for any sign that something could be a blaze. About 1/4 mile south I spotted something and told my son that it might be the blaze. Most might not even spot this object unless really paying attention. It was a radio tower with a beacon light. The word beacon is also known as a blaze. It is visible during the day but is clearly visible at night. This made me think that Forrest long ago told everyone they might want to take a flashlight and sandwich because the blaze was more evident at night. I believed that the blaze was the red beacon on top of the radio tower. In My War For Me, f talks about how the blink was winking at him. The beacon on the tower also winks. In that story he also talks about how some place was beaconing to him. I thought that was an odd choice for wording when he could have said beckoning. When I considered those things it seemed to add up. Also in his book and some recent replies to questions he uses red letters. Where I began was a red light and the blaze is also a red light. Red is also one of the colors in the rainbow. Could the Firehole Ave. light and the beacon light be the beginning and the end of Forrest’s rainbow?

As for the sixth stanza I thought that Hear me all referred to Radio Rd. which is south of town that goes right to the blaze. Forrest also mentions radio a number of times in other stories. He also used the word canned for getting fired from his newspaper job. Canned can also refer to pre-recorded radio. Your effort will be worth the cold if you are brave and in the wood. I was doing some internet research before we took our first trip and was studying West Yellowstone. West Yellowstone is located on a very cold and heavily wooded plateau so that was good enough for me. Also if you remember back to The Totem Café Caper Story, Forrest talks about Frosty’s polarity. West Yellowstone sits almost exactly in the middle between the North Pole and the equator.

To conclude I must say that this area south of West Yellowstone does not contain Indulgence. I did see new country, learned new things, made memories with my son that are priceless, and learned to adjust to the poem. I took a total of three trips to this area with only two of them allowing for searches due to the weather. Another searcher graciously searched for me this fall as well. He shot some video which I appreciated very much. F is correct when he says the poem is important. It contains so much more than what you might expect. I learned to see not read.